…on the way to Portland. Sigh.

I’d booked an Economy car online, but when I got to Seattle on Tuesday (July 16th) the guy at the Budget counter tried to upsell me on a convertible (only $8 more a day!), but I told him I’d pass. For what I think was the first time ever, I DIDN’T pass on the (costly) supplemental coverage – I’m not sure why. The guy then told me he’d give me a Mercury Mountaineer at no extra charge. At that point, I had no idea what a Mountaineer was, so I took it. As it turns out, it’s pretty wildly far from an “Economy” vehicle. Whatever. I figured it would definitely get me around, and get me to Portland.

Seattle was fine, but all work. A lot of getting. I got into town, got my bag, got my car, got to the Days Inn, got checked in, got to bed, got up, got dressed, got checked out, got to the client site, got done, got dinner, and got on my way down to Portland. I’ve seen Seattle before, and probably will again, so that part was alright. I had a coffee in hand, and decent music on the radio, and a fairly scenic three-hour drive down I-5…

Except that I slammed into a deer around 30 miles north of Portland, near some town called Kelso. Had I been upsold on the convertible, or been given an actual Economy car as I’d planned, things would probably have gone VERY badly for me. As it went, things went VERY badly for the deer, but not nearly as badly for me. I had been going around 70 mph (the posted limit) in the middle lane, in near-darkness, with few cars around me and a truck coming up behind. The deer came out of the center of the highway, so it must have already crossed the northbound lanes at some point, but by the time it was in the cone of my headlights I was less than 30 feet away. I hit my brakes, but I didn’t slam on them – it’s better to hit a deer a little faster than to risk losing control of your vehicle altogether, or getting rammed from behind by another. I had a brief vision of the deer looking up at the headlights, then another (pretty awful) vision of the deer spinning off on its side across the left lane and shoulder and back into the center divide area, and I checked my mirrors and hit my hazard light button and got myself onto the shoulder as quickly as I could. The trucker behind me followed me there – he’d seen the whole thing, and wanted to see if I was alright. We were both blown away by the fact that the Mountaineer was basically sound. The driver-side headlight was toast, and everything left of the grille and forward of the wheel was hurting, and there was a huge dent across both driver-side doors – BUT it was still easily in good enough shape for me to be able to get back in and drive it.

I called Em to tell her what happened, and she was my On*Star, guiding me to the nearest open Budget location – which turned out to be the Portland airport. Amazingly, since I’d opted for all the extra coverage you can buy, they basically swapped the keys out with minimal fuss or paperwork, and they gave me a Lincoln Town Car for my trouble. So I ended up driving into Portland like a true Pimp. I got to my hotel, the 5th Avenue Suites (thank you, Priceline.com!), and crashed out bigtime. The place is fairly swank, and it has free wireless internet access in the rooms! Woo hoo!!